Into Boston

June 8-

Today my baby is two months old and Anne Bancroft died, before we visited the State House that was built in 1713. When the Declaration of Independence was read from the upper balcony, the colonists threw ropes over the Lion and Unicorn statues (symbols of England) and pulled them down, much like Sadam Hussein's statue yanked down last year in Iraq. Eventually the symbols were replaced so we could remember our past.

Boston was founded in 1630 and 20 minutes northwest are the small towns of Lexington and Concord, near the Old Manse.

Breakfast at the Holiday Inn was American, which is a lot better than Continental Breakfasts. Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy was born on the North End of Boston in 1913, which is now the Italian section of the city.

We visited the house where she was born. This is also the section where the Puritans settled, and the area where the first public schooling was started. Rose died at 104 years of age, and was baptized and had her funeral in the same church south of Old North church near Paul Revere's marble statue.

We also walked by Boston Commons, and visited the Old North church where Paul Revere told Newman to put two torches in the balcony so the minutemen knew the Redcoats were coming by sea, or in our case the Charles River. Revere's house which we visited next is the oldest standing wooden house in Boston. People wondered how he made so much money going back and forth over land helping the colonists, but few people take into consideration that he had 16 children at home. He didn't have to do much work!

The Old North Church was built in 1723 and over 1100 people are buried beneath it. A clock sitting in the rear of the church was built in 1726 and still works to do this day. It was the first Anglican Church in the USA, and it's pipe organ was the first built in the USA. On April 18, 1775 Robert Newman, the janitor, hung those famous lanterns and John Hancock and Sam Adams were warned by Lexington that the red coats where coming to destroy their stockades. Newman was subsequently arrested and spent 3 months in jail before George Washington got him out. Moreover, people in the church had to purchase and furnish their own pews and bring in their own foot warmers.

We walked from there to the harbor where the USS Constitution sits still in service after centuries. As we climbed the hills I saw several broken televisions lying like wingless birds in the streets. The Constitution is called Old Ironside, and never lost a battle.

After this we were dropped on the top of Beacon Hill and saw houses worth 4-7Million Dollars. We walked down a small street where John Kerry and Teresa Heinz Kerry live, and we took photos of her car parked out front. Across the small wooded park was Mary Louisa Alcott's home and the current home of author, Robin Cook. We then walked down Acorn Street lined in river rock from the Charles River.

Parking Spaces in this area cost over $176,000 in the local garage!

MIT was founded in 1861 and the bridge we rode over the Charles River was measured in Smoots, which was a freshman measured head to foot over and over across the bridge. The smoot marks are still on the bridge. Our director told us that if you have a degree from MIT that you can get a job anywhere and many people sing a small song to the tune of Mickey Mouse…. MIT PHD M.O.U.S.E. !!! Hahahahahhaaha

Cambridge, MS was founded in 1630 and has several large universities and colleges, including Radcliffe which was a women's college originally and is now part of Harvard.

I had lunch at Crazy Doughs, and had some thin pizza that wasn't great. I then walked the shops the Garage, an old garage changed into some shops. I got a Starbuck's and walked Harvard Yard where they were setting up for graduation today. Several people looked like Andrew McCarthy from St Elmo's Fire, and the maroon flags hung high above the colums of the library and grass crawled up the chair legs row over row.

I purchased Nickel & Dimed in Harvard Bookstore and they gave me a free book mark.

After lunch in Harvard Square we took the bus to Lexington and stopped on the green to reenact the battle there. There 177 minutemen were poised to defend themselves against over 700 redcoats. Late at night the 177 decided to go to the tavern and wait for the red coats who had to cross the river in the low mud with 50 pound backpacks.

Eight minutemen were killed and buried under the monument on the green. Of the 177, 100 of them left before the battle and most were turned running away when the red coats shot. No one knows how the war began, but it all started with the shot heard 'round the world.

We next visited the Old Manse in Concord, MS, which is a house built by Emerson's grandfather where Hawthorne honeymooned for three years with his wife! The house was stifling hot as we stood in room after room listening to a volunteer tour leaders who said "Um" was too much!!! Outside of the Manse was the Old North Bridge where the minutemen came back into the town of Concord. The redcoats were in town burning up cannon holders, and the redcoats saw the smoke and thought their town was being burned down. They rushed the bridge and a battle ensued before the redcoats headed back to Boston and the Revolutionary War had begun.

We then returned to Boston to Fenuiel Hall for a texmex dinner at ZUMA's. Not a real treat those of us from AZ and NM. We ate a quick dinner before two of the groups decided to go see the Boston Pop's. We ran from the restaurant toward the "T" and one young lady decided she needed to use the restroom. So we sent her with two friends, while a larger group of us jumped onto the T toward Symphony Hall. I took a few of the FL kids with me to the Symphony while J waited for the girls. We got there and the man told me that none of the $16 seats were left. I told him to check again and he found them. We bought six and ran upstairs at ten til 8. We were in the back in the student discount section high above the stage. We sat among the pennylings way up high, much unlike in the Globe where we would've stood on the floor. I received a text message that J and the girls had made it and were on the floor. We met them at Intermission, and they were given free ticket vouchers from a man out front at 7:59pm. They wanted us to sneak onto the floor to the $120 seats with them, but we chickened out at the end. I sat upstairs listening to folksy, symphony like something out of the deep south or Oh Brother, Where art Thou? It was quite cool.

After the show my wish came true as rain belted down splashing from car windows into the gutter-rivers. We pulled our t-shirts up over our noses and ran into the rain toward the T station. We transferred underground toward Copley Plaza and ironically were headed towards the Hard Rock to eat Ice Cream sundaes in the chilly Boston night.

Chewy, our waiter, allowed us in even though it was late, and we ordered our desserts and used our napkins to wipe rain from our faces. Stevie Nicks purple dress hung in a cabinet above the stairs down the bathroom before we stepped into the street back toward the trolley station. A slight grey umbrella protected several of us huddled together from a slight drizzle. Splashing through puddles, we made our way back underground and to the hotel where we slipped into warm beds